Social Media Quick Tip: Google Hangouts on Air Provides Great Advantages to LE

A Google Hangout from a social media training session in Spokane, WA, on May 3. During the hangout, whoever is speaking occupies the large screen. Thumbnails L to R: Gordon Scobbie, Deputy Chief, Tayside, Scotland, Kempton Lam, community member from Calgary, AB, the room in Spokane and Scott Mills, Toronto Police Social Media Officer. (Photo: Scott Mills)

Whether or not to recommend law enforcement agencies embrace Google+ is something I’ve struggled with for some time. I’m a huge proponent of “fish where the fish are” when devising a social media strategy. On one hand, the number of Google+ users (175 million) is still far fewer than Facebook’s (850 million), but numbers alone never tell the whole story.

A hangout is G+’s video conferencing feature which allows up to 10 users to chat with video. But Hangouts on Air, which was released to the masses this week, allows the host to broadcast the hangout, live, on YouTube. Add to the equation that YouTube has 800M user accounts and 4 billion page views per day, this HOA thing is worth paying (a lot of) attention to.

Streaming video used to be cumbersome and require the use of a Livestream or Ustream account. With HOA, you need only a Google+ account enabled with HOA and a linked YouTube account.

Hangouts use for LE ranges from enhancing internal communications by using it for online meetings with your own staff or police leaders in different geographies, to live broadcast and recording/archiving of press conferences and events. In addition to streaming on YouTube, embed the broadcast to stream on a PD website.

In the past two weeks, I participated in several hangouts with law enforcement and community members. In each, at least three countries were represented. Think of how useful this could be for law enforcement, whether your hangout is public (with HOA) or private.

About ConnectedCOPS

The vision behind ConnectedCOPS is to enhance law officers’ ability to succeed with social media tools by providing insight, encouragement, education and the overall support required. It is also to promote the insightful thoughts of the law enforcement social media visionaries by providing them a voice on this blog.